IS releases video threatening to attack Putin

• DNUM_AHZADZCABG 20:36

The IS branch in the North Caucasus called on Muslims in Russia to “kill apostates” in the country and threatened to attack President Putin.

IS fighter. Photo: Eurasia Review

In a video posted on social media on March 5, the warriorself-proclaimed Islamic State militant group (IS) in Chechnya calls on Muslims in Russia to join the fight against the West.

The video begins with a Russian TV report about a car bomb attack in the town of Dzhemikent in Dagestan province on February 15 that killed two Russian police officers. The video then cuts to footage of militants standing in front of the black IS flag and talking about the importance of “attacking apostates,” the Jerusalem Post reported.

An IS leader called on “brothers of faith” from the Caucasus and elsewhere in Russia to join the group in Syria and Iraq. He said that if they could not go, they should “fight against apostates” in Russia “with a rope or a knife”, if they had no other weapons.

The group urges millions of Muslims in Russia to unite, seize land and expand their control.“Allah has given us these iron missiles, we will use them against the infidel Putin and his minions,” the leader said, pointing at what looked like tank or large-caliber artillery ammunition.

The video ends with a militant shooting a man believed to be a Russian intelligence officer.

Russia has had a large security presence in the Muslim-majority North Caucasus region since the 1990s. Islamist militants in Dagestan, the restive eastern region of Chechnya, have made several attempts to join IS.

Russia began its air campaign against IS in Syria in late September last year. After IS claimed responsibility for shooting down a Russian Metrojet over Egypt in October 2015, killing 224 people, Russia stepped up its attacks on IS strongholds in Syria.